European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (Bollingen Series XXXVI) [Paperback]

Ernst Robert Curtius (Author), Willard R. Trask (Translator), Peter Godman (Afterword)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1991 | ISBN-10: 0691018995 | ISBN-13: 978-0691018997

In this "magnificent book" (T. S. Eliot), Ernst Robert Curtius (1886-1956), one of the foremost literary scholars of this century, examines the continuity of European literature from Homer to Goethe, with particular emphasis on the Latin Middle Ages. In an extensive new epilogue, drawing on hitherto unpublished material, Peter Godman analyzes the intellectual and political context and character of Curtius's ideas.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This is the sort of book which takes much of a man's lifetime to produce and which can be read again and again with profit and pleasure. In effect it is an analysis of medieval Latin literature as a major stage in the transition from the Graeco-Roman classics to the modern vernacular literatures. No forbidding catalogue of periods, authors, and works, but literary criticism and literary history by a thoughtful scholar at home in classical, medieval, and modern literature, this is a powerfully presented and richly informative study of medieval standards, values, assumptions and literary conventions. -- The Virginia Quarterly Review

We have in [this work] a vast store of significant learning, and many new and important insights into the humane literary heritage and its precarious transmission. -- Francis Fergusson, The Hudson Review

A balanced introduction to Curtius studies, putting this masterpiece in context as the work of a German academic 'mandarin' whom family history, character, and intellectual training made an advocate for an elite European cultural cosmopolitanism. -- Sixteenth Century Journal

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 736 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (February 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691018995
• ISBN-13: 978-0691018997
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #893,626 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic., October 12, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (Bollingen Series XXXVI) (Paperback)

This book is a classic. A real monument of culture, produced by this philological mind of the twentieth century. Its pages have consistently revealed the powerful medieval literature, totally breaking the idea of a dead age to literature. His commentary on St. Augustine`s Confessions (chap.IV, rethoric), as well as the excerpt of St. Augustine`s work that he brings to us, are pearls of the literary critic. We can hardly find nowadays an erudit of this kind.
Yes, his work has a lot of problems, maybe even some errors and some avoidable historicism. Yes, his work is an old one. Yes, his bergsonian introduction is boring. Yes, some of his interpretations are doubtful.
But you can`t really pass through the Middle Ages without reading this classic.